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The success of the syndicated loans market over the past 15 years has been unmitigated due largely to its flexibility in raising large amounts of credit at very short notice for a wide range of borrowers. This flexibility is based on close personal contacts between major participating banks, and clear guidelines within international banks regarding acceptable minimum spreads and exposure to major borrowers. Syndicated lending has enabled banks to satisfy unprecedented levels of credit demand while managing a diversified loan portfolio. However, there is a risk of potential loss to banks through lending to borrowers with whom they have no direct contact.

This study surveys the money market integration literature over the past three decades. Generalizations include (1) global money market integration is increasing over time although evidence of remaining market segmentation is prevalent and (2) emerging Asian capital markets are rapidly becoming an integral part of world markets.

“Financial services” is a shroud which seems to unify a number of activities which are in reality quite diverse. Statistics of advertising are one indication of marketing activity in this sector. They include categories as diverse as “boroughs and corporations” advertising loans to the public, “credit cards” offering at one and the same time credit facilities and a means of payment, and “prospectuses” which are invitations to invest, usually in quoted securities, while “insurance and assurance companies” could include anything from life offices advertising their reversionary bonuses to insurance brokers commending their services as risk management consultants. The common factor throughout is money; usually money changing hands for a monetary return, but the market may be consumers, industry, or banks and other financial institutions worldwide.

The issue of exposure management, a significant subset of international financial management, is closely intertwined with the notions of foreign exchange risk and exchange market efficiency. Since value is a function of risk, that makes an understanding of these notions germane to those who seek value in global markets. This study finds earlier attempts specifying exchange market efficiency inadequate and those dealing with foreign exchange risk deficient in generating prescriptions for exposure management. The paper focuses on the notion of the market hierarchy (goods, financial and foreign exchange) and the inter‐relationships among the markets. It helps the reader understand the theoretical constructs underlying prevailing schemes for foreign exchange exposure management. Most importantly, it identifies situations under which exposure management is relevant and potentially rewarding. It also points out circumstances when existing dictates for management will yield benefits only by accident. The paper offers some specific alternative suggestions to guide managers in making informed and logical decisions.

If we accept the logic of mainstream free‐market ideology‐based macroeconomic theory, the European Central Bank should, to maximise economic efficiency, be independent of political influence. It is easy to forget that such an understanding of the economy was discredited by the great 1930s slump and banished from government policy in the “Golden Age” of capitalism, between 1950 and 1973. Proposes to move beyond the free‐market/monetarist/new‐classical consensus to consider if the row over who should head the ECB is as trivial as it seems. First considers the work of Michal Kalecki, which typically represents the Golden Age’s prevailing ideology of positive state intervention. Next considers how Europe’s post‐war economic performance can be consistently explained by Kalecki’s work. Then moves on to consider the development of the Single European Currency project with the insight that an alternative economic ideology provides.

This paper investigates the performance characteristics of Turkish private and state‐owned commercial banks for the 1986– 1990 period. The link between interest margins and maturity structures of bank asset and liabilities is specified. Empirical evidence indicates that banks with longer positions experienced lower interest margins, a finding consistent with the presence of a downward sloping yield curve during most of this period. The results document that bank margins suffered after the financial reforms of 1988. Further, compared to private banks, state‐owned banks exhibited lower interest margins and longer maturities, which is a direct consequence of portfolio constraints and management style of banks.

The purpose of the paper is to explain how and why strategic alliances, in the form of clubs and consortiums, played an important role in the internationalisation of banks.

A longitudinal analysis, commencing in 1964 with the emergence of the Eurocurrency market and culminating with the creation of the European single market in the early 1990s, is used to provide an insight into the creation of clubs and consortium banks. The authors adopt the Lawson realist methodology and identify broad structural changes in the markets in which banks operate, i.e. “mechanisms” and relate these to major trends, i.e. “events” such as the creation of strategic alliances.

It is generally recognised that banks became international in response to the globalisation strategies of their multinational customers. However, the paper reveals that banks were also internationalising in response to structural changes in the financial services markets.

A criticism of the Lawson methodology is that it is not always possible to discern causal linkages between mechanisms and events. This explains why research of this kind is typically retrospective because it is only with the benefit of hindsight that the causal linkages can be fully understood.

The study provides new insights into the emergence of international banking and the role of clubs and consortiums in this process.

Endeavours to give a breakdown on the changes in the world economy that have radically changed UK banks' international operations. Stresses significant changes have taken place in the flow of goods from the UK – the decreasing importance of Commonwealth markets has been more than made up by the increasing importance for the UK of EEC markets. States that between 1960 and 1980 the proportion of exports from the UK to the EEC rose from one‐fifth to more than a half of total exports, and the exports to Commonwealth countries fell from nearly a half to a quarter. Discusses the Euromarkets further and the foreign exchange market. Concludes that herein has been highlighted some of the current developments in the international capital markets of most significance to the international marketing of UK banks.

Corporate treasurers, in managing their foreign currency payables and receivables, are continually forced to decide whether to deal forward or to wait and to deal spot in the future. The forward market provides a market where, for a price, the risk of adverse foreign exchange rate fluctuations can be sold off to professional risk bearers. The last ten years have seen considerable turmoil in the foreign exchange markets. In this article I want to examine several issues. Firstly, how do you measure the cost of forward cover under flexible rates and has there been any change in the cost of cover of flexible compared with fixed rates? Secondly, to what extent is the forward market a reliable forecaster of future spot rates? Thirdly, what, if any, are the corporate hedging implications of the behaviour of the forward market?

This study examines the pricing of international bank loans to LDCs as a group to ascertain if non‐price variables are dominant factors in granting these loans. Specifically, it attempts to test the hypothesis that banks, in extending Eurocredits to LDCs, have used credit rationing, rather than pricing, maturity or other variables, to respond to the perceived risks involved in such lending. Results of empirical tests for the period 1977–90 confirm that, in response to significantly higher perceived risks, lenders simply constrained the flow of credit to this group of countries.